Finnick wakes up in Johanna’s bed without remembering quite how he got there. That should probably worry him.

“You wanna get wasted and watch idiot television?” Johanna asks, and Finnick’s so relieved he laughs.

“Fuck, yes,” he says, and she gets up, calls downstairs for eggs and bacon, pancakes and maple syrup, orange juice and coffee and champagne.

They’re leaning against each other half-dozing when the Capitol seal spins and Caesar Flickerman comes on to talk about wedding dresses.

MIND THE TAGS /points up to them

Finnick wakes up in Johanna’s bed without remembering quite how he got there. That should probably worry him, but he just blinks, rolls onto his back, away from where he’s ended up curled around her. He brushes stray hair away from her face, her eyebrows drawn together even in sleep, and stares at the ceiling, trying to figure out what the fuck’s going on.

He’s gotten pretty good at identifying drugs and dosages from the aftermath, so now he just slides through the checklist. Headache whining low against the bottom of his skull, not pounding in his temples or an ice pick behind his eyes. Memories fuzzy and blurred, not razor-sharp fractured. And he slept hard last night. Not uppers, not true hallucinogens, probably a dissociative. Ketamine, he’ll guess, or something like it. Whatever designer mix Philomena’s favoring these days. And he must’ve been drinking after to black out like he did, which is fucking stupid, but well, that’s par for the course too.

Mystery probably solved, he relaxes a little more, halfway dozes until Johanna stirs, blinks a couple times, rolls away from him and sits up, heels of her hands pressing against her eyes. She doesn’t look at him, gets up and pads over to the cheap coffemaker and flips a switch. Gets her cup, grabs a pack of cigarettes and curls up in the armchair in the corner.

She doesn’t look at him until she has the cigarette lit and is sipping at her coffee.

“Mornin’” Finnick drawls, and she twists her mouth into a smile.

She takes a deep draw on the cigarette, blows smoke at him. It’s sweet-spicy something, weed and tobacco and man, the Capitol always has to make this shit complicated. She catches him sniffing and tips the pack towards him.

“Nah,” Finnick says. “Too harsh.”

“You,” Johanna says, smirking, “Are a big baby.”

He glares at her, and she shakes her head. “You got plans today?” she asks, nonchalant except for how she won’t meet his eyes.

Finnick shudders. He’s got Cassius tonight. Rougher than Finnick’s usual clients. He’ll have to get a full Remake treatment and wax and everything perfect, a clean slate so Cassius can get the full pleasure of watching welts form on his back, matched bruises on his cheek from a fistful of rings, and Finnick clamps down on his imagination after that. “Not till tonight,” he says, and his voice comes out tight and rough and Johanna gives him a sour look.

“You wanna get wasted and watch idiot television?” Johanna asks, and Finnick’s so relieved he laughs.

“Fuck, yes,” he says, and she gets up, calls downstairs for eggs and bacon, pancakes and maple syrup, orange juice and coffee and champagne.

While they’re waiting she digs through her stuff, giving him long-suffering looks, finds her ridiculous high-tech vaporizer and a bag of weed, raw.

“For your delicate constitution,” she says with a sharp smile, climbs up on the bed next to him, and by the time Johanna gets up to get the door Finnick’s headache has dissolved, and he’s sliding toward relaxed, or something like it.

Breakfast, ridiculous and extravagant and nothing his stylists would approve, mimosas with more champagne than juice, and some lunatic adventure story on TV about Peacekeepers tracking down train robbers, and he’s actually laughing.

When the champagne’s gone Johanna digs out a bottle of whiskey, and Finnick doesn’t like whiskey but right now he likes everything, and they watch children’s cartoons and drink and smoke. They’re leaning against each other half-dozing when the Capitol seal spins and Caesar Flickerman comes on to talk about wedding dresses.

“What in the name of all the districts,” Johanna mumbles, sliding back down against Finnick’s chest from where she’d sat up straight at the anthem. “Fucking vultures.”

Finnick rolls his eyes to the ceiling, settles his arm around Johanna and pours himself another drink. “Those kids’re in for a fucking treat,” he says, surprised at how sharp his voice is, bitter and mean. Johanna’s breath stutters against his chest as she chuckles.

And then the anthem blares again, the seal spins, and the President comes onscreen with Flickerman, smiling snakelike and sending chills down Finnick’s spine. Johanna sits up again, pulls away so they’re no longer touching, eyes fixed on the screen.

It’s the Quell card, and it’s a ridiculous production because of fucking course it is, and the President opens the box, opens the envelope, and says this year’s tributes will be Reaped from the existing pool of Victors. It takes a second for Finnick to process, and when he does he bursts out laughing. “Muttfucking son of a donkey,” Johanna hisses. “Shit.” Finnick’s still laughing because it’s…fucking hysterical. The one thing he never bothered to worry about, and here that’s what’s happening. The one thing he’s not actually scared of, because fuck, he can kill people, and either he does that really fucking well and comes out again, or he dies in the Arena, and let’s be honest here—there’s way worse things they could do to him.

And then he sees Johanna grab the empty champagne bottle from this morning and fling it through the projection to shatter against the wall behind, and she’s getting up and going out to the balcony, whiskey bottle in her fist and fury on her face.

And…shit. Johanna’s going in for sure, no other D7F to call from their Victors, and Johanna isn’t laughing about it. And then he thinks of Annie, and fuck, Annie can’t go in. And dammit, he should call her, and he only ever calls her drunk when he gets stupid and homesick, but he needs to call her and tell her he’s okay, she’ll be okay, and he’s never fucking believed any of that but she needs to hear it and… “Get it together, Odair,” he says, out loud, fisting his hands in his hair. Gets up and fumbles, annoyingly clumsy, through his jacket pockets till he finds his phone, calls Annie’s house.

But he can’t help it, so he continues. “Except,” Johanna raises an eyebrow. “Can you imagine Edwin in one of those ridiculous animal costumes at the tribute parade?”

She’s trying not to smile now, her face twisting with it. “Or Haymitch, in a coal miner helmet and nothing else?” And then he pulls out his trump card. “Odin, bare-chested in one of those flimsy-ass fake suits of armor? Body paint and all?”

And he wins, because she cracks, starts laughing, punches him in the shoulder on her way to steal the bottle from him.

They go back inside and sit on the bed, passing the bottle back and forth and making fun of all the other districts’ Victors. He doesn’t touch Seven, and she doesn’t touch Four, and they get really, stupidly, irresponsibly drunk, slurring and laughing hysterically, and sometime after Johanna falls asleep leaned against him, Finnick does too, because the next thing he hears is his phone, blaring.

He picks it up, slow and stupid and dizzy and disoriented. “Hello?”

“What the fuck, Finnick, where are you?” His stylist. Oops. “You were supposed to be in prep 20 minutes ago.”

“Sorry,” Finnick says. Tries to pull his thoughts into some kind of order. “I’m with Johanna, at her hotel. You should send a car.”

“Dammit, Finnick,” Rafe says. “Get your ass down to the lobby, car’ll be there in five.”

Johanna only half wakes up when he gets up, mumbles something and then slides down till she’s flat, curled on her side. He’s unbelievably fucking jealous. He goes into the bathroom to piss, drinks a couple glasses of water until his stomach roils. Considers, then lets himself puke, water and whiskey and bile, and when he stands up he feels—like shit, still, of course. So he splashes water on his face, grabs his jacket and shoes, and heads down.

He must be really drunk, because not only does the stylist shriek at him and hand him a pill before shoving him into the shower, when he comes out he gets an IV stuck in his arm. An hour later he’s hairless and mostly sober and the shit they give him’s supposed to avoid inconveniences like hangovers but it doesn’t change the fact that Finnick feels sick. And despite his team’s best efforts he arrives late, pulling up to the house fifteen minutes after his appointment time. Oh well. At least that gives Cassius an excuse for the backhand full of rings he gives Finnick when he answers the door, pulls him inside. Finnick tastes blood on his teeth, feels skin split over his cheekbone, and tonight he has to lie here and take it, but at least in the Arena he’ll be able to fight back.